Biff, Chip & Kipper Books

Biff, Chip & Kipper - as seen on TV! Their brand new live-action show, Biff & Chip, is out now on CBeebies. The kids are joined by their Mum, Dad, Gran, best friends Wilf and Wilma, and their naughty dog Floppy. In these all-new stories, our heroes face an obstacle course, a yeti, and even a dragon! There’s all sorts going on from losing a stick insect to discovering buried treasure! Don’t forget to catch the famous book characters Biff & Chip is on CBeebies every weekday at 5.05pm, and the whole series is on iPlayer. 

For more than 30 years, the characters of Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy the Dog have been helping children learn how to read. These books have stood the test of time, building essential reading skills for children worldwide. Now with countless handy and helpful books and growing year by year, it is no wonder that Biff, Chip & Kipper remains one of our bestselling series.

Featuring beautiful illustrations, the Biff, Chip & Kipper books are designed by experts at Read with Oxford. The engaging books will teach readers all the basic reading skills needed in everyday life, from important phonics to common words and everyday language. The aim is to provide books that are both entertaining and educational for readers who are looking to learn but have fun at the same time. Each book is perfect for practising and perfecting skills that can prepare children for new challenges in school and life.

If you are eager to help your child develop from a struggling reader to one with confidence, we highly recommend the Biff, Chip & Kipper series - it’s a huge fan-favourite for parents and has been for over three decades. At Books2Door, we stock Biff. Chip & Kipper book packs for the entire Read with Oxford syllabus. The book sets have been carefully selected and grouped together to support children’s reading development at whatever level they’re at. Click here for the Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, and Stage 5 packs.

Don’t miss out on our Authors and Featured categories for more great titles. You can also shop by age to select the age group you would like to browse for your children. For other helpful reading materials to support your children’s learning at home, make sure to browse our home learning category.

What is Read with Oxford?

Read with Oxford is a unique range designed to help parents support their child’s reading journey. The books are packed with fun-filled stories, educational activities and much-loved characters that have been around for over 30 years. The books are favoured by schools and loved by parents.

There are six Read with Oxford Stages to help parents navigate their child’s reading journey, from first steps in phonics to reading independently. The Read with Oxford Stages can be easily matched to Oxford Levels or Book Bands used by schools. We’ve got exclusive book sets to support children with the resources and much-loved methods that parents swear by to help every child learn to read.

For nearly forty years, these loving characters and their various adventures have taken children around the world, teaching children all about language at the same time. Parents may remember these books with nostalgia - they were previously known as Oxford Reading Tree. However, they’re far from old-fashioned. Read with Oxford has continued to refresh the range with new books focused on contemporary topics. The books entertain and teach young kids about language, which helps build their interactions and relationship with friends.

If you’re a little unsure about where to start, this super easy guide by Oxford University Press provides you with a short reading placement test. It’s designed to help parents determine which Stage their child is at. Check it out here.

Who are Biff, Chip and Kipper?

Kipper likes to play with Biff, Chip and Floppy, the dog. His real name is Christopher, but he couldn’t pronounce his name correctly as he was learning to talk. His dad then decided the name Kipper suited him, and since then, he’s been Kipper to everyone.

Biff and Chip are twins. Biff loves to play football and go swimming, and she is always ready to join in with games and loves to craft things. Chip likes to go cycling, enjoys sports activities and creative activities like drawing. Their real names are Elizabeth and David. Kipper couldn’t pronounce those either.

The big dog Floppy loves running around, playing with a stick and ball, digging holes and going for swims in the pond and is always covered in mud.

Together, they go on many wonderful adventures, from a trip to the beach right up to travelling in time and space. With a magic key, anything’s possible. Along the way in each story, children will learn a lot about language at a steady and manageable pace.

What’s in the books?

Each Biff, Chip & Kipper book is carefully designed and structured to make reading development smooth and straightforward, supporting the Read with Oxford programme as a whole. Parents can use this guide to see which books are recommended for their child’s reading age and level.

The books are designed to provide phonics-based reading practice, help support children’s reading experience and broaden their skills. The books are brimming with funny tales, drama, and charming characters that inspire, excite, and spark curiosity in children.

Many of the early stories are focused on family life. This is perfect for younger children, who can recognise the situations the characters find themselves in, and this will support their learning.

However, as the series progresses, the adventures get bigger. The characters make discoveries, go around the world and back in time, and even journey into fiction. This corresponds with the growing confidence of the reader, becoming more able to follow the stories and enthusiastic about more complex narratives. 

Children progress through five different learning levels. They start with phonics in Level 1, then move to simple words and short sentences in Level 2. These sentences get longer in Level 4, progressing to reading by themselves more in Level 4. Finally, Level 5 sees them becoming a full-fledged independent reader.

The books also contain interactive, such as fun puzzles, activities, and ‘I Spy’. These seem like ways to reward children after they have successfully completed one section, but are actually techniques to check your child’s understanding of the book, and help cement the lessons through repetition. Children will enjoy putting the letters and sounds together to make everyday and familiar words that help build their vocabulary.

Parents and teachers are huge advocates of these books because they are dedicated to teaching children phonics. This series of over 800 books has helped millions of young readers around the world, from primary school age upwards. It has become part of the National Curriculum and is used in 80% of UK primary schools. It’s available in over 130 countries, translated into more than 15 languages and read by more than 30 million children.

About the authors

The beloved Biff, Chip & Kipper series was created by writer Roderick Hunt and illustrator Alex Brychta. In a BBC interview, Hunt says that he started writing the books because he was concerned about his son’s development. He’d been a slow reader himself, so wanted reading material that could both benefit and entertain him, but couldn’t find any. So, he made some himself, writing books focused on “humour and fun and motivation” whilst encouraging reading development.

The vibrant illustrations by Brychta were designed to appeal to children in two ways. The central characters are simple, so children can draw them themselves. However, the picture as a whole is beautifully detailed, so kids can enjoy pointing out all the different things in the illustration. Brychta was born in Czechoslovakia and gre­w up around books that were “absolutely horrible… there was no humour at all, it was tedious.”

The first pack of thirty books was published in 1985 as the Oxford Reading Tree. Now known as Read with Oxford, this six-stage programme brings your child from phonics to an independent reader. They’re kept up-to-date with the changing world, as well as modern educational techniques, so you can be sure that your child is getting the best first reading experience.

The series is incredibly popular with children, parents and teachers alike. The books have been borrowed from libraries over a million times, and adapted for television on multiple occasions. The latest incarnation, Biff & Chip, premiered on CBeebies in September 2021. You may also remember the animated TV series The Magic Key, which aired on BBC Two and CBeebies way back in September 2000. These twenty-six episodes were shown right through to 2008.

Why Biff, Chip, & Kipper?

Let’s talk about the achievements and incredible things Read with Oxford has produced with this marvellous series. The stories don’t just focus on one particular place, but take children all around the world, across deserts, forests, the sea and in various locations in different countries. This not only teaches children about new words and sentences, but it forms new views and broadens children’s perspective on their surroundings, habitat and what goes on around them. 

Now, the entertaining series of the modern age covers all critical components like Maths, English, reading development, all filtered by age and school year. Some of the books contain activities that focus on areas around the curriculum. It’s truly a delight to find that your children could be learning times tables, phonics development, creative language or even cooking! In stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3, each collection will guide children from basic to more advanced skills. This can prepare children for all circumstances, from daily use to school exams. 

Let’s highlight some of the critical areas that the books take readers on for reading development. In the earlier books of stage 1, children will learn about alphabets. These are accompanied by alphabet games that help develop memories of letter shapes and sounds. The books will also allow children to build their recall of simple words and sentences and improve their concentration skills. In other instances, in stage 1 of the books, children will be taught to associate pictures with words and letters. There are interactive games that match letters, sounds and shapes to images helping them start reading basic words, all designed by reading experts. Children will also learn about rhyming words and linking various letters and sounds to form words fundamentally needed for spelling.

In stage 2, the adventures of Biff, Chip and Kipper takes you further to new places, for example, following Wilf on a fishing day, Floppy on a desert journey and a dress-up party with Chip. Children who are now more experienced readers and can comprehend basic language can now explore the new exciting trips the series has to offer in stage 2. In stage 3 and after, the books tackle more complex ideas and stories which further challenges readers in a fun way. 

Here at Books2Door, we want to encourage a love of reading in all children. That’s why we have been offering exceptional books at affordable prices since 2004. Shop our books by age category for more books in other age groups. 

We also stock a wide variety of educational books. These include Read it Yourself with Ladybird, a fifty book box set of fairy tales, amazing facts, and original fiction, divided into four reading levels. It’s another fantastic collection of books from Ladybird, and is highly recommended to any child learning to read.

You can also check out the nine-level Usborne Reading Programme, which starts at phonics. Then, across three series of books, your child will progress to full-length narratives. It kicks off with My First Reading Library and then goes through My Reading Library, The Usborne Reading Collection, and finishes with The Usborne Reading Collection for Confident Readers.

All of these different schemes can be used alongside each other, so you can ensure that your child is getting the most whole learning experience, and has access to a great range and variety of different stories and information. Many of our books are available in affordable box sets, so you don’t have to worry about running out halfway through. Shop our selection now, and keep checking back, as we constantly have new books listed on our site.